www.stand4islam.blogspot.com: Healthcare in the Islamic State

About this blog

In recent times a plethora of misconceptions, misrepresentation and myths have been forged about Islam
and Muslims. Many western influentials from politicians, policymakers to judges have taken it upon
themselves to undermine the Islamic beliefs, values and rules so to make it palatable to their
egotistic minds and the secular liberal thoughts.

This blog is dedicated:-

1. To argue the point for Islam in its belief and systems and to refute the misconceptions.
2. To expose the weakness and contradictions of all forms of secularism.

22 Mar 2010

Healthcare in the Islamic State

Barack Obama signed the controversial US healthcare bill into law today after months of heated debate.

US Healthcare has been under the spotlight in recent years and gained international focus after Michael Moore released his documentary, "Sicko" three years ago. In it, he focused on the failure of the American healthcare system. Particular attention was given to the Insurance Companies and how their purpose was not to help people in need but rather to increase profits. The solution proposed was to have a public healthcare system similar to those in Canada, Britain, France and Cuba.

With an economy in disarray and the rising costs of the Iraq and Afghan wars, you may wonder what is wrong with the US's priorities? The debate over health care in the US centers on whether there is a fundamental right to healthcare, or who should have access to healthcare and on the quality achieved for the high sums spent.

Medical debt is cited as the single biggest factor in 62% of all personal bankruptcy in the United States.

50 million Americans do not have health insurance.

Approximately 18,000 of the 50 million die every year because they do not have health insurance.

The US does not view health as a basic right, but as a privilege. Barack Obama is challenging this view through his reform bill to provide universal health care through health insurance for all. This has been met by wrath from the right wing,

The US does provide a government funded programme the biggest being Medicaid and Medicare. But generally it is up to individuals to obtain health insurance. Most get coverage through their employers, but others sign up for private insurance schemes. Under the terms of most plans, US citizens pay regular premiums, but are required to pay part of the cost of their treatment before the insurer covers the expense. This is the situation of the 250 million people who have health care. It has become a common occurrence for those with health insurance, having to incur much debt after the deductibles for health insurance are removed, causing a significant number to even sell their homes.

So how will a future Khilafah address the issue of healthcare?

Taking care of people's affairs

Islam is a unique system revealed by Allah سبحانه وتعالى that provides the needs for both the individual and society. Allah سبحانه وتعالى being Al-Khaliq - The Creator of all that exists - will evidently know what is best for us. With His infinite knowledge, His system will be able to provide solutions to any problem that human beings have or will encounter. With regards to governance, the Khalifah is entrusted in applying the laws of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. The Khalifah is directly responsible before Allah سبحانه وتعالى for any issue that affects citizens in the Islamic State.

The Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم said, "He who has been ruler over ten people will be brought shackled on the Day of Resurrection till justice loosens his chains or tyranny brings him to destruction." [Tirmidhi]

The ruler does not only have to respond to the people under his care but must also answer to a higher authority, Malik-al-Mulk (The Owner of All Sovereignty). As such, he must fulfil the obligations placed upon him as this is not only a mandate of the state but is the Ahkam of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. Therefore the Khalifah must care for every citizen's need and ensure that they are not facing any undue hardships such as lack of access to healthcare or even long wait times.

The Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "Whoever is put in charge of any of the affairs of the Muslims and remains aloof from them and pays no attention to their needs and poverty, Allah will remain aloof from him on the Day of Resurrection, and will pay no attention to his needs and poverty." [Abu Dawood, Ibn Maajah, Al-Haakim]

The above hadith clearly shows the weight that lies on the shoulders of those in authority. When Umar ibn Abdul Aziz became the Khalifah, he was seen to be rather gloomy. His servant asked him why he was so sad and worried. Umar replied, "Anyone in my shoes should be so; I must deliver and grant all the nation's citizens all their rights, whether they demand them or not."

The care of those under the authority of the state is not judged based on the annual budget or political aspirations but rather it is based on the rights afforded to them by Allah سبحانه وتعالى. This obliges the Khalifah to provide them with the utmost care to the best of his ability regardless of whether the citizens are aware of this right or not and whether they have asked for it or not.

Healthcare in the Khilafah

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: "Each of you is a guardian and is responsible for those whom he is in charge of. So the ruler is a guardian and is responsible for his subjects." [Bukhari & Muslim]

The Imam is responsible for managing the affairs of the people. One of the basic needs that the Khilafah must provide for is healthcare. When the Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم as head of state in Medina was given a doctor as a gift, he assigned him to the Muslims. The fact that the Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم received a gift and he did not use it, nor take it, rather he assigned it to the Muslims is evidence that healthcare is one of the interests of Muslims.

Since the state is obliged to spend on providing a free healthcare system for all, then part of the Bait ul-Mal's budget must be for healthcare. If insufficient funds are available then a wealth tax will be imposed upon the Muslims to meet the budget deficit.

Unlike the Capitalist system, the Islamic system views the provision of healthcare to its citizens from a human perspective and not an economic aspect. This means that the leader of the Islamic State looks to provide adequate and good quality healthcare to the people, not for the sake of having a healthy workforce that can contribute to the economy but for the sake of fulfilling his duty of looking after the needs of the people in obedience to Allah سبحانه وتعالى.

Medical excellence in Islamic history

When Islam is implemented as a complete system, it provides a means to excel in all fields such as science and technology. In the past, individuals under the Khilafah made a tremendous contribution to the medical field.

The Khilafah was blessed with many first class hospitals and doctors in several of its cities: Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Cordova, Samarqand and many more. Baghdad alone had sixty hospitals with in-patient and out-patient departments and over 1,000 physicians.

Public hospitals like the Bimaristan al-Mansuri Hospital, established in Cairo in 1283, had accommodation for 8,000 patients. There were two attendants for each patient who did everything for his/her comfort and convenience and every patient had his/her own bed, bedding and vessel for eating. It treated in-patients and out-patients giving them free food and medicine.

There were mobile dispensaries and clinics for the proper medical care of the disabled and those living in the villages. The Khalifah, Al-Muqtadir Billah, ordered that every mobile unit should visit each village and remain there for some days before moving to the next.

From the above historical accounts, we see that when the Khulafaa' properly implemented the rules of Allah سبحانه وتعالى, then and only then did a society truly thrive and succeed. However, it is important to keep in mind that material advancement does not equate with true success - seeking the pleasure of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. For the Khulafaa' it was not about simply providing medical services, rather it was to fulfil the needs of the citizens entrusted to them for which they will be held accountable for.

[Article written by Abdul Kareem, March 2010]

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What they said...

“Islam represented the greatest military power on earth…It was the foremost economic power in the world…It had achieved the highest level so far in human history, in the arts and sciences of civilization...Islam in contrast created a world civilization, poly-ethnic, multiracial, international, one might even say intercontinental.”

[Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Orientalist and Historian, 2001]

"There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world. It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts…the civilization I'm talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600… Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage"

[Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard, 2001]

"For the first three centuries of its existence (circ. A.D 650-1000) the realm of Islam was the most civilized and progressive portion of the world. Studded with splendid cities, gracious mosques and quiet universities where the wisdom of the ancient world was preserved and appreciated, the Moslem world offered a striking contrast to the Christian West, then sunk in the night of the Dark Ages."

[Lothrop Stoddard, Ph.D (Harvard), American political theorist and historian, 1932]

"Medieval Islam was technologically advanced and open to innovation. It achieved far higher literacy rates than in contemporary Europe;it assimilated the legacy of classical Greek civilization to such a degree that many classical books are now known to us only through Arabic copies. It invented windmills ,trigonometry, lateen sails and made major advances in metallurgy, mechanical and chemical engineering and irrigation methods. In the middle-ages the flow of technology was overwhelmingly from Islam to Europe rather from Europe to Islam. Only after the 1500's did the net direction of flow begin to reverse."

[Jared Diamond, UCLA sociologist and Author, 1997]

"No other society has such a record of success in uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity and endeavour so many and so varied races of mankind. The great Muslim communities of Africa, India and Indonesia, perhaps also the small community in Japan, show that Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great societies of the East and west is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable condition."

[Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Professor at Harvard University, 1932]

“The Muhammadan Law which is binding on all -- from the crowned head to the meanest subject is a law interwoven with a system of the wisest, the most learned and the most enlightened jurisprudence that ever existed in the world.”

[Edmund Burke, British Statesman and Philosopher, 1789]

"The Exile here is not like in our homeland. The Turks hold respectable Jews in esteem. Here and in Alexandria, Egypt, Jews are the chief officers and administrators of the customs, and the king’s revenues. No injuries are perpetuated against them in all the empire. Only this year, in consequence of the extraordinary expenditure caused by the war against Shah Tahmsap al-Sufi, were the Jews required to make advances of loans to the princes."

[David dei Rossi, Jewish Traveller 17CE, quoted by Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands]

"The notable religious tolerance towards Christians and Jew under Muslim rule had given way to the uncompromising zealotry of Spanish Inquisition. Jews and Muslims thus fled Spain with large numbers of Jews immigrating to the Ottoman Empire which was known for its tolerance to the Jews."

[Graham Fuller, Author and former CIA, 1995]

“If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure, which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of history, which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and systems of beliefs, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history”

[Charles Philip Arthur George, HRH The Prince of Wales, 1993]

"...Not being subject to the Sharia, Jews and Christians were free to go to their own religious authorities for adjudication of disputes; but in many cases they went instead to the [Muslim] Qadi"

[Richard W. Bulliet, Professor of History and Author, 2004]

"Here in the land of the Turks we have nothing to complain of. We possess great fortunes; much gold and silver are in our hands. We are not oppressed by heavy taxes and our commerce is free and unhindered. Rich are the fruits of the earth. Everything is cheap and each one of us lives in freedom. Here a Jew is not compelled to wear a yellow star as a badge of shame as is the case in Germany where even wealth and great fortune is a curse for a Jew because he therewith arouses jealousy among the Christians and they devise all kinds of slander against him to rob him of his gold. Arise my brethren, gird up your loins, collect up your forces and come to us."

[In his book 'Constantinople', Philip Mansel quotes a rabbi in Turkey writing to his brethren in Europe where they were facing increasing persecution after 1453]

"Praise be to the beneficent God for his mercy towards me! Kings of the earth, to whom his [the Caliph’s] magnificence and power are known, bring gifts to him, conciliating his favour by costly presents, such as the king of the Germans, the king of the Gebalim, the king of Constantinople, and others. All their gifts pass through my hands, and I am charged with making gifts in return. (Let my lips express praise to the God in heaven who so far extends his loving kindness towards me without any merit of my own, but in the fullness of his mercies.) I always ask the ambassadors of these monarchs about our brethren the Jews, the remnant of the captivity, whether they have heard anything concerning the deliverance of those who have pined in bondage and had found no rest."

[Hasdai Ibn Shaprut (915-990 CE) Jewish physician, chief minister of Islamic Caliphate in Cordova, 'The Jewish Caravan']

"In Baghdad there are about forty thousand Jews, and they dwell in security, prosperity, and honour under the great Caliph [al-Mustanjid, 1160-70 CE], and amongst them are great sages, the Heads of the Academies engaged in the study of the Law…’"

[Benjamin of Tudela, Rabbi in Baghdad in the year 1168 CE, 'The Jew in the Medieval World']

"Those Eastern thinkers of the ninth century laid down, on the basis of their theology, the principle of the Rights of Man, in those very terms, comprehending the rights of individual liberty, and of inviolability of person and property; described the supreme power in Islam, or Califate, as based on a contract, implying conditions of capacity and performance, and subject to cancellation if the conditions under the contract were not fulfilled; elaborated a Law of War of which the humane, chivalrous prescriptions would have put to the blush certain belligerents in the Great War; expounded a doctrine of toleration of non-Moslem creeds so liberal that our West had to wait a thousand years before seeing equivalent principles adopted.

[Leon Ostorog, French Jurist]

"The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence"

[Robert Briffault, Novelist and Historian, 1928]

"The only effective link between the old and the new science is afforded by the Arabs. The dark ages come as an utter gap in the scientific history of Europe, and for more than a thousand years there was not a scientific man of note except in Arabia"

[Oliver Joseph Lodge, Writer and Professor of Physics, 1893]

“Thus, when Muslims crossed the straits of Gibraltar from North Africa in 711 and invaded the Iberian Peninsula, Jews welcomed them as liberators from Christian Persecution.”

[Zion Zohar, Jewish scholar at Florida International University, 2005]

“Throughout much of the period in question, Arabic served as the global language of scholarship, and learned men of all stripes could travel widely and hold serious and nuanced discussions in this lingua franca. Medieval Western scholars who wanted access to the latest findings also needed to master the Arabic Tongue or work from translations by those who had done so.”

[Jonathan Lyons, Author, Writer and Lecturer, 2009]